“You could have said we’d be overlater.”
“Uh, yeah, I could have, but someone was distracting me and I could barely think.” The smile dropped from her lips. “We also need to visit Molly, check in on how she’s doing.”
Something hard lodged in his chest. He hated that someone else had gotten hurt. “Okay. Your aunt, then Molly. But first I need to finish what I started.”
She opened her mouth, but before she could get a word out, he dove, this time taking her other nipple between his lips and sucking hard as she writhed beneath him.
Elle staredthrough the window as Jace pulled up in front of her aunt’s house. She didn’t get out right away, instead examining the red trim and the yard that was crowded with plants. It was the house she’d grown up in since she was eight.
When a few seconds passed and she still didn’t move, Jace touched her thigh. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, I just…sometimes when I come here, it reminds me of being eight years old and getting dropped off by my dad, not realizing I’d never see him again.”
Her mother had left her and her father when Elle was five, because she’d met some guy and her new life didn’t haveroomfor kids. Or at least, that’s what her father had told her. Her dad tried to do the single-parent thing for a while, but when she was eight, he just gave up, dropping her at his sister’s house without looking back. She’d never heard from him again.
Asshole.
Jace squeezed her thigh. “Worst mistake he ever made. You were a huge loss, Tink.”
She gave him a small smile. “I’m so grateful that Jewel took me in. She looked after me when I had no one else and she did the best she could, considering she was pretty young. I just felt so abandoned by the two people who were supposed to love me the most. I think that’s where this idea that I wasn’t good enough first stemmed from. Good enough. Pretty enough. Outgoing enough.”
“You aremorethan enough. And Jewel loved you. She still does.”
One side of Elle’s mouth lifted, and she turned her gaze away from the house to look at him. “She loved you more.”
“That’s not true.”
“Oh yes, it is. I bet you the second we step in there, she’ll say a quick hello to me and be all over you. I’ll be forgotten.”
He leaned over and hovered his lips over hers. “Not gonna happen.”
She grinned as she kissed him, because he was about to eat a slice of humble pie.
They climbed out, and her door had barely closed before Jace was at her side. He’d been noticeably different this morning. He was always attentive, but his gaze had been lingering on her longer than usual. His hands always on her or close.
Yesterday had clearly shaken him, maybe even more than her.
She leaned into him as they climbed the stairs to her aunt’s front door. She lifted her hand, but her fist hadn’t even hit wood before it was tugged open and Jewel stood in front of them.
She gasped. “Elle! You’re okay!” She tugged Elle into her arms. “I’m so glad. I was so worried when Marie told me what had happened.”
Elle hugged her aunt back. “And how did Marie know?”
“Oh, I’m not sure. She heard it from Fred, who heard it from someone else.”
Crazy. This town wascrazy.
When her aunt pulled back, her gaze immediately shifted to Jace. “Jace Walker. The son I never had.” She pulled him into a hug. “It issonice to see you.”
Jace hugged her back, his gaze moving to Elle as she mouthed, “I told you so.”
One side of his mouth lifted, and even after her aunt pulled away, she grabbed Jace’s hand and tugged him into the house. “Come. Eat with me.”
Elle swallowed a laugh as she followed them in, pushing the door closed after her.
“I made cucumber sandwiches and carrot sticks,” Jewel said as she stopped at the table.
Oh, Lord. She remembered those cucumber sandwiches. They were awful. God-awful. Cucumber, pickled onion and butter…that was it. How her aunt ever thought of those fillings as a good combination, Elle didn’t know.
